surplus sunday: beginner’s fried rice

A quick glance over at the cooking department on this site will surely leave one wondering where the actual cooking is, what with most of the cooking featuring stove-cooked desserts and side dishes cooked in the oven. For when it comes to true cooking, you could pretty much smell my fear shrouding the air like burnt garlic plastered at the bottom of a new I-thought-it-was-nonstick pan. Of course, my favourite and perhaps overused excuse reason behind this non-culinary trait of mine would be the fact that I live in the same household as an undeniably great cook, who, much to my dismay, never follows any recipes nor uses any strict measurements, and rocks it old-school with her method of ‘a pinch of this, a dollop of that’, which, if I may add, never fails to confuse me to no end, for the pinch almost always leads to more than what I had imagined a pinch to be. At this point, I can almost see a couple of heads nodding in agreement, attesting to the aforementioned style of seasoned cooks, as I would call them; along with some of you catching yourselves laughing silently, perforated with a tad of guilt at my ineptness around the kitchen and my accurate description of your cooking style.

To those of you belonging to the former camp, I feel you; to the latter, know that I have an unabashed envy of you.

And as life were to play itself out, I found myself alone in the kitchen one day, itching to give a try at what I perceived to be a simple foray into the cooking world. The resulting dish was a quick mash up of anything I could find around the kitchen, and while it most certainly lacked a certain je ne sais quoi that my mother’s fried rice always charmed us with, I guess it’s not such a bad start to break out of the cooking fear. And even though my dishes will never match up to my mother’s;– funny how the same dish can look totally different;– and the techniques and seasonings I use may offend the traditionalist in her, I will safely stick to recipes that actually have the words ‘teaspoons’ and ‘cups’ in them, and steer far far away from ‘pinch’ and ‘to taste’, thank you very much.

When I first tried to cook nasi goreng, I cheated and used instant mix powder, added scrambled egg and enoki mushroom and called it Nasi Goreng Pemalas. Nobody in the household wanted to finish it up but I was so proud of my first dish haha! Since I’m no good in the kitchen, maybe I should surprise my mother by taking down this recipe and give it a go.

It looks mouthwatering! My grandma uses the same ” a pinch of…” system, and I feel so insecure with it as you tell us you do with your mom’s one. I think that we just have to try, experience is deciding! (and some kind of gene I’m not pretty sure I have haha. Just joking.)

This is my hands-down favorite breakfast food, and I’ve never been brave enough to make it. Not sure if I can find belacan paste here in my small town, but I’m going to try, and then I’ll hide it from the family so they don’t open it, pull faces and insist I throw it out! I’m saving this to instapaper so I can make it soon! Thanks for the inspiration – and I can’t believe you’re a beginner cook?!?

i too believe in (or rather, need) precise measurement for all my cooking. i’m still a noob cook (despite having set up my own household more than 7 years ago). because of this need for precision, i have yet to have a bowl of decent sambal tumis. when you have The Perfect sambal tumis recipe (right down to how many grams of salt/sugar), please share it!